Recent research trend of economic‐lot scheduling problems

Abstract

PurposeThis research note aims to present a summary of research concerning economic‐lot scheduling problem (ELSP).Design/methodology/approachThe paper's approach is to review over 100 selected studies published in the last 15 years (1997‐2012), which are then grouped under different research themes.FindingsFive research themes are identified and insights for future studies are reported at the end of this paper.Research limitations/implicationsThe motivation of preparing this research note is to summarize key research studies in this field since 1997, when the ELSP problems have been verified as NP‐hard.Originality/valueELSP is an important scheduling problem that has been studied since the 1950s. Because of its complexity in delivering a feasible analytical closed form solution, many studies in the last two decades employed heuristic algorithms in order to come up with good and acceptable solutions. As a consequence, the solution approaches are quite diversified. The major contribution of this paper is to provide researchers who are interested in this area with a quick reference guide on the reviewed studies.